be quiet! Pure Base 600 Case Review

Overview

Back in October we took a look at one of be quiet’s most expensive Cases the impressive (as it’s so big) Dark Base Pro 900. Well this time around we’re taking a look at what could be described as a more sensible option and a far cheaper option too. The Pure Base 600 is from be quiet’s Pure (budget) range and is available in silver, black or orange with or without a full sized 4mm tempered glass panel.

The Pure Base 600 is a midi tower Case measuring in at (L) 492mm x (W) 220mm x (H) 470mm that supports Mini-ITX, M-ATX and ATX Motherboards. The Case itself features seven expansion slots, x2 5.25″ drive bays, x3 3.5″ drive cages and supports up to x8 2.5″ drives. The Case comes equipped with two be quiet! Pure Wings 2 fans, the front is a 140mm fan while the rear exhaust is a 120mm, there are seven fan mount locations in total. In addition to this there’s also an inbuilt 3 stage fan controller. There’s also support for up to a 360mm radiator in the front of the Case and up to 360mm in the roof. Maximum CPU Cooler height is quoted at 165mm while maximum PSU length is 210mm. The Pure Base 600 is also equipped with noise dampening panels at the front, top and side of the Case.

‘Pure Base 600 is truly multi-talented, offering a great deal of functionality and features for an attractive price. This case sets new standards in its performance class with high installation flexibility and effective cooling performance.

Smart usability features and whisper-quiet operation enable you to realize almost any system configuration you desire for your ATX or micro ATX PC. It’s simply the perfect base to build your system on.’

The be quiet! Pure Base 600 arrived at pcG in a plain brown cardboard box that’s no doubt eco-friendly. The front of the box shows a simple wire-frame image of the Pure Base 600 with the slogan ‘Exceptionally Silent and Functional’. We can also see that this is the Window version of the Case. The back of the box shows an exploded view of the Pure Base 600 with a numbered reference system highlighting various aspects and features of the Case.

On opening the box we can see that the be quiet! Pure Base 600 is adequately packaged and presented with the Case protected by two hard polystyrene blocks and covered with a plastic bag.

In the box, other than the Case itself we find a small box hiding within. Here we find a User Manual, a plethora of screws etc and some Velcro cable ties.

At the time of review the be quiet! Pure Base 600 (Orange/Window) is retailing at Overclockers UK for approximately £90 and comes with an impressive 3 year warranty.

First Impressions

First impressions of the be quiet! Pure Base 600 are pretty good, although it’s immediately apparent that the pure base 600 features a somewhat safe (some may say boring design). But it does have that premium look thanks to that full sized tempered glass panel on the left. Overall there’s plenty to like here and not much to hate, but there maybe little to love also…

As you can see from the images above the left side of the be quiet! Pure Base 600 features a full sized tempered glass panel that helps to give this budget(ish) Case a more expensive look. The panel itself features a light smoke and is secured by way of four thumb nuts, while the glass itself rests on rubber washers.

The right side of the Case features a simple steel panel that is secured by two captive thumb screws. The inner side of this panel is also equipped with noise dampening material in an aide to keep noise to a minimum.

The top of the Pure Base 600 is rather curious in its design and relatively clever in the fact that it features a removable plastic panel allowing for fans (if fitted) to breathe through the top of the case. This removable panel can also sit proud of the top of the Case again promoting airflow, in addition to this there’s also noise dampening material. As there are no roof fans fitted, this panel is likely to remain in position though. There’s (apparently) room for up to a 360mm radiator and or three 120mm fans, but there’s worryingly little room for both. A 240mm radiator with fans is likely the best bet here, which is a bit of a shame.

At the front of that top panel we find the Pure Base 600’s Front Panel controls etc. This comprises of x2 USB 3.0 ports, audio (headphone & microphone) ports, power LED, activity LED and power & reset buttons. There’s also a simple three stage fan controller that has control over the two pre-installed fans. Note there is no fan hub.

The Pure Base 600 sits up off of the desk by approximately 22mm thanks to four plastic legs that are also equipped with rubber feet. At the back we also find a PSU filter that slides out from the back of the Case.

The front of the Case comprises of a simple, removable plastic panel that also features the same noise dampening material as the right side and the top. In addition to this, at the top we find two 5.25″ drive bays and a simple silver be quiet! logo near the bottom of the panel. Here on the orange version you can also see the air intake strip that runs around the edge of the front of the Case.

As you can see from the image (above centre) the panel can be removed as it’s simply held in place by plastic clips. Now we can easily see the single pre-installed 140mm intake fan. Here you can also (and more easily) install radiators up to 320mm in length, assuming you remove the 5.25″ drive bracket at the top.

Looking at the back of the be quiet! Pure Base 600 we see a very simple and familiar layout. Top left we find the main I./O shield cutout with the 120mm exhaust fan to its right. Below centre we find seven expansion slots that’s flanked by a simple mesh section allowing air to move in/out of the Case. Finally at the bottom we find the main Power Supply cutout.

Looking in through the left hand side of the Case, with the glass panel removed, we see a relatively standard layout. But it’s immediately obvious that there’s no PSU shroud which is a little disappointing, especially in 2017. Everything else looks in order though with three hard drive cages on the right and even a 5.25″ bay at the top. Thankfully all of these can be removed.

All cabling, as you can see from the image above centre, is also thankfully black. Although the lack of any USB 2.0 support may put some people off. Also as we can see the PSU area features simple rubber feet allowing the PSU to sit up off of the floor of the Case in an aide to keep vibration and noise to a minimum. This is a be quiet! case after all… 😉

The three fitted drive cages (or brackets) can be removed if necessary. Each one is held in place at the back by three thumb screws. Note that these brackets also support 2.5″ drives (x2 per bracket), bringing total 2.5″ drive support up to eight when you include the two dedicated brackets at the back. Also note the use of (orange) rubber nnti-vibration washers on all of the HDD mounts.

Up top we find a simple 5.25″ drive bay bracket that supports up to two devices. This can also be removed (above right) by removing the six screws that hold it in place.

As I’ve already stated the be quiet! Pure Base 600 comes with two pre-installed fans. The front one is a be quiet! Silent Wings 2 140mm fan with a maximum rotational speed of 900RPM. While the be quiet! Silent Wings 2 120mm fan at the rear, acting as an exhaust, has a maximum rotational speed of 1,300RPM.

Removing that right hand panel reveals a good amount of cable management space at the back and the beginnings of a basic wiring loom. Although it’s once again disappointing to see that the cables are simply help by twisted cable ties. In fact the default cabling is a bit of a mess to be honest. The image above centre shows the nine screws that need to be undone (as they are captive) to remove the three drives cages. Finally we have the two dedicated 2.5″/SSD brackets at the back of the Case, each one held in place by a single thumb screw, bringing the total number of supported 2.5″ drives to eight.

As I mentioned earlier we also have a be quiet! Pure Power 10 700W Power Supply and a be quiet! Silent Loop 280mm CPU Cooler that will make up part of this review. The Pure Power is also from be quiet!’s Pure (budget) range and is a 700W PSU with a Silver efficiency rating. The CPU Cooler is a 280mm AIO liquid based cooler that fits in perfectly with the Pure Base 600’s AIO radiator support.

The Pure Power 10 PSU is a relativity compact ATX PSU measuring in at (L x W x D (mm): 150 x 150 x 86) and is equipped with a silence-optimized 120mm be quiet! fan. As you can see from the image above (left) the PSU is semi modular with both the 24-pin and the 8-pin CPU Power cables attached. All cables provided are black and sleeved. As is with the be quiet! Pure Base 600 the Pure Power 10 700W is also covered by a 3 year warranty.

The Silent Loop 280mm is a AIO liquid cooler with a 280mm radiator (incl. fan: (H)319mm x (W)144mm x (D)55mm) and two be quiet! Pure Wings 2 PWM fans, with a maximum power capacity (W TDP) of 400W. The radiator is made from all copper while there’s also a refill port on the pump. Again this be quiet! component is covered by a 3 year warranty.

My plan for this build obviously included the Pure Power 10 700W PSU and the Silent Loop 280mm AIO CPU Cooler, along with a host of other modern components including a GTX 1080Ti and a Samsung PCIe M.2 SSD. Therefore the first task of the install was the uninstall!?

Yes that’s right it was time to loose those HDD cages (x9 thumb screws), the upper 5.25″ drive bay bracket (x6 screws) and the front intake fan (x4 screws). Most of this was to make way for the Silent Loop 280mm that I would fit to the front of the Case as there’s simply not enough room in the top for both a radiator and fans. To fit a 280mm radiator in the front the upper 5.25″ bay bracket has to be removed. While the included 140mm fan would simply be replaced with the two Pure Wings 2 PWM fans that came with the Silent Loop AIO.

The initial install went well with plenty of room for the be quiet! Pure Power 10 700W PSU and some well placed cable management holes (with grommets) to pass the cables through. While fitting the Motherboard I found that despite the fact that be quiet! supply extra screws here and there, there were not enough stand-offs or screws for my Motherboard. As it requires ten stand-offs/screws in total. Also note that there’s precious little room to hide that pesky HD audio cable either.

But what’s really odd is the fact that the standard ATX Motherboard hides more than half of the cable management holes for the main MB install!? Leaving just the one at the top… What be quiet! were thinking here I have no idea to be honest, is this really an oversight… 😮

Thankfully the be quiet! Silent Loop 280mm AIO CPU Cooler fitted easily within the front of the Case and looks pretty good to boot. It’s a shame though that there’s not really enough room up top for it, especially with all of that untidy cabling in the way. The two Pure Wings 2 fans fitted perfectly in the front of the Case though ans did the radiator within.

As you can see from the images above there was no issue installing our test Nvidia GTX 1080Ti, with plenty of space once the drive cages have been removed. Although as you can see the two lower cages would also fit back in with ease. The final build actually looks really good especially once the tempered glass panel is back in position. My main bug bears are the lack of room in the top of the Case for AIO water cooler (inc fans), the untidy cabling held by simple twisted cable ties, and the bizarre situation that sees 66% of the cable management holes covered by a standard ATX Motherboard!? 🙁

Acoustic Performance

In it’s default configuration with it’s single 140mm intake fan and the single 120mm exhaust fan the noise produced with both fans at 100% is very quiet indeed. This, almost makes the in-built fan controller somewhat redundant; we measured just 36dBA with our test equipment at 1m away. In our build configuration things were obviously different thanks to the x2 140mm fans that form part of the be quiet! Silent Loop 280mm AIO. These fans also run faster that the stock fan, 1600RPM as opposed to 1200RPM. With all fans running at 100% in the the tested configuration shown above, noise levels rose to 43dBA. But this is still relatively quiet all things considered and as the fans are PWM controlled this noise level can be adjusted via the Motherboard’s UEFI to suit. Most of the time when idle and during Gaming noise levels are around 38dBA, in fact your Graphics Card is likely to be emitting more noise than the be quiet! fans.

Final Thoughts

The be quiet! Pure Base 600 is a good Case and a good looking Case too, yet it seems to me a little stuck in the past. While there’s not much wrong with it overall, well apart form those grommet positions, its lack of a PSU shroud, untidy cabling and no illumination makes it seem somewhat expensive at £90.

The be quiet! Pure Base 600 arrived at pcG in a simple brown, eco-friendly, cardboard box with the contents adequately packaged and presented. There’s not much in the box other than a basic User Manual, assorted screws etc and some Velcro cable ties. Also while be quiet! seem to like to supply an extra screw here and there, there wasn’t enough stand-offs or screws for my Motherboard that requires ten!?

Once out of the box it was soon apparent that the be quiet! Pure Base 600 is a good looking Case and seemingly well made also. The tempered glass panel helps to give the overall aesthetic a premium look, but the rest of the Case is best described as, well; understated I guess. With only the front intake vents (orange on this version) giving it a little bit of bling! But don’t get me wrong, it still looks good on the desktop with its somewhat executive/professional style…

Looking at what the Pure Base 600 brings to the party impresses at first. It’s a good size, for the most part the layout is also good. There’s room for 165mm high CPU Coolers, 210mm Power Supplies and 300mm+ Graphics Cards. There’s also support for up to three HDDs and up to eight SSDs as well as two 5.25″ drive bays. In addition to this there’s room for two 360mm radiators, one in the front and one in the roof. But there’s really very little room up top for a 360mm with fans and the existing cabling is also in the way. There’s also non PSU shroud, a feature that’s now very common in 2017 and should really be here. The inclusion of a fan controller is nice, but controlling just two virtually silent fans is not that much of a feature, especially as there’s no associated fan hub. Although the sound deadening material used on the side, front and top panel is very welcome.

Installation of the be quiet! Pure Power 10 700W Power Supply was as easy as one would expect and the cable management holes in the Pure Base 600 are well placed. Installation of the be quiet! Silent Loop 280mm was also quite straight forward although the mounting bracket consists of too many parts in my opinion. As you can see from the images above the radiator and fans fitted beautifully in the front of the Case. Installing the rest of the system was simple enough, but the position of the Motherboard that covers over half of the cable management holes is a complete mystery to me!? Also the default wiring within the Case is really rather messy and is simply held in a couple of places by twisted cable ties.

Once that tempered glass panel is on and the Pure Base 600 is on the desk it certainly looks smart with a premium look that wouldn’t look out of place in an office. What’s here, feature wise, aboard the Pure Base 600 is good, but it’s what’s not here that has me concerned. At around £90, the 600 is not cheap especially when you consider that there’s no PSU shroud, no fan hub to go with that controller and no illumination. The biggest issue is that other manufacturers offer all of this for similar money, sometimes cheaper…

Of course the be quiet! Pure Base 600 is quiet, especially with the two included fans that are near silent in operation. Even when equipped with the be quiet! Silent Loop 280mm AIO CPU Cooler the Case remains relatively quiet at just 43dBA with all fans running at their maximum speed.

A year ago the be quiet! Pure Base 600 would have fared better in our review , but things have moved on since then and it would seem that be quiet! may have taken their eye of the ball a little. The Pure Base is a good Case and most would be happy with it, but numerous manufacturers offer Cases with more fans, a PSU shroud and RGB lighting for similar money and that’s be quiet!’s biggest issue here.